Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Free Association of German Trade Unions

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted 01:11, 14 February 2008.

Free Association of German Trade Unions[edit]

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This article covers a rather minor episode in the history of the German labor movement. This union federation is mostly known for having spawned the FAUD, which is mentioned at the end of the article. The article is based only on academic sources, both German and English. I've tried to use English ones as much as possible, but relying mostly on German sources is just inevitable, because not many people have written about this organization in English. All of this article was written by me, but I'd like to thank both User:Tim1965 for his copyediting, and User:Awadewit for her GA review, her feedback on the article's talk page, and the copyediting she did. I am certain this article meets all FA criteria. I hope you will excuse the large number of red links in the article. Wikipedia's coverage of the German labor movement before 1933 is almost non-existent, so red links are inevitable. I will be filling in many of them over the next months.Carabinieri (talk) 18:14, 31 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support - well-sourced, wide coverage, excellent set of supporting images. Red links don't bother me, nor do extensive sources in a non-English language (frankly, I'm pleased when someone takes the time to get this information into an English format for ignorant Americans like me). --JerryOrr (talk) 02:29, 1 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Uncertain - It is well-presented but I have a concern with the sources: while 57 citations are listed, most of them come from only 4 sources. The pie chart in the second half of the page is not very clear, either. - 52 Pickup (deal) 14:16, 5 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • This article is based on pretty much all post-WWII scholarly works on this topic. You have to consider that this just isn't a very major topic, so finding a lot of sources is nearly impossible. Many articles have a lot more sources, but they aren't always as reliable - academic sources being the most reliable ones there are. Could you explain why that pie chart is unclear? It is supposed to demonstrate the fact that before WWI most of the FVdG membership was from Berlin and the rest of Prussia, while afterwards most members were from the Ruhr region, i.e. Rhineland and Westphalia.--Carabinieri (talk) 16:15, 5 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • If there is not that much information available for this topic then fair enough - it's just that some people are real sticklers for having lots of sources when it comes to FA nominations. For the charts, it is clear what information you are trying to present, but the 3-D format that you use is IMO not the optimal way to present this information. To make the comparison clearer maybe a different format (eg. like Image:2002 federal german result.svg) might be better. Another problem is that while your point is clear to me, the two plots compare two slightly different things - 1912 talks about Berlin, Prussia excluding Berlin, Saxony and the rest of Germany; 1921 talks about Berlin / Brandenburg, Rhineland / Westphalia, Silesia (which were all parts of Prussia), Saar (which was part of Prussia in 1912) plus a number of regions where it is unclear if they are Prussian or not. If the same type of information is available for both times (or at least 1912 numbers for the Rhineland and Westphalia) then the information presented would be a lot stronger - although I appreciate that this is probably not the case, given the scarcity of information about this topic. - 52 Pickup (deal) 08:55, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I haven't found any numbers for Rhineland and Westphalia before WWI. If you think the charts are two confusing as they are, I could just remove them.--Carabinieri (talk) 12:31, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • It might be best to remove the chart image and just make the shift in membership clear in the text. - 52 Pickup (deal) 13:57, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - one of the first things that came to mind when I looked at the article was "wow, there are an awful number of red links." If stub articles can't be created, those should be delinked. Quite a few sections appear to be unsourced, the second paragraph of the Pre-war period section, for example, only notes one footnote. Is the whole paragraph sourced from that one reference or are references missing? Some other paragraphs seem to be the same way. Has the article been given a once over by a copyeditor? Some of those issues would likely have been caught during that process. Collectonian (talk) 21:12, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Every paragraph is sourced. That paragraph in the "Pre-war period" section, for example, is all based on the paper by Wayne Westergard-Thorpe cited in the footnote. Stubs could be created to fill in those red links, but stubs are generally more or less useless. It makes more sense to create full articles on those topics, which I will be doing over the next couple of months, as I mentioned in my nomination. I also mentioned in my nomination that the article has been gone through by both User:Awadewit and User:Tim1965, so yes, it has been copyedited.--Carabinieri (talk) 21:22, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • True, but a stub would get rid of the red. Still, I know the feeling. I had a few in my last FA, so I delinked rather than create stubs, so maybe just remove the links and keep a note in your user pages that you will created and relink later. What about the references in the middle of sentences? Collectonian (talk) 21:34, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Per the MOS, references should go at the end of the sentence unless there is a very compelling reason to put them within it.Collectonian (talk) 21:38, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Where did you find that rule? The only thing close to that I could find is the following sentence on WP:CITE: "Some material must be referenced mid-sentence, but footnotes are usually placed at the end of a sentence or paragraph." This wording clearly allows mid-sentence footnotes where it's necessary. The article uses such footnotes three or four times because one source only covers a part of a sentence. I think that is a compelling reason.--Carabinieri (talk) 22:45, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Redlinks are not a valid objection at FAC; they are only a problem if this article's comprehensiveness is affected. If a source covers an entire sentence, it is placed at the end of the sentence or after the punctuation of the portion it sources; if it covers only part of a sentence, it may be placed mid-sentence. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:57, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I found Image:Change in geographic distrution of FVdG and FAUD members.PNG very unintuitive. Same colours seem to be used for different things, making comparison 100% misleading. This for me is the gravest error possible when presenting a pair of statistical elements for the reader to compare. Furthermore, the systems of regionalising differ, which compounds the problem. Now it could be that through my lack of understanding of German geography, I've made an error here. In which case, some explanation is either missing or less up-front than it should be. --Dweller (talk) 13:50, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]


  • Support. Karanacs (talk) 14:50, 13 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments
    • I think I'd reorder the first paragraph of Background section. "According to Angela...This claim is based on....Many of the later...Hans Manfred Bock, on the other hand...."
    • What year(s) was Carl Hillman active? Since there is a redlink on his name, I'd appreciate the brief background here.
    • "After the laws were sunset " -> this may be confusing for non-English speakers (and likely some native speakers). I would either wikilink to sunset provision or rephrase
    • "The localists" seems like an odd way to refer to the local labor unions. Is that what the scholarly works use?
    • I've only seen avant garde as an adjective. Is it commonly used as a noun too?
    • "congress was originally supposed to take place a year earlier, but a lack of interest forced it to be postponed" -> since lack of interest had been a factor, did they have a fair representation when it was actually held? I think the article needs perspective on whether a large number of the "localists" attended or whether a small group pushed through the formation of the new organization.
      • Okay, I see that this was actually mentioned later in the article. I think the statistics need to be moved up to the first paragraph.
    • "A newspaper, Solidarität (Solidarity), was founded, whose name was changed to Einigkeit (Unity) the following year. "-> This sentence is ungainly; the clauses aren't ordered properly, which makes it not read well.
    • If one number in a sentence is not spelled out, the other number should not be either (22 to eight is wrong, 22 to 8 is correct)

Karanacs (talk) 18:54, 11 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Thanks for your comments, Karanacs. I'll address them in the same order.
    • Done
    • He's best known for the work he did in the 1870s. I've added that. If you think more information would be appropriate, please say so.
    • I didn't include a link at first, because the term is already linked in the lead, but I've added it now.
    • Yes, it is. The term localism describes not only the local structure of the unions, but also the ideology behind them, which claims that large, centralized unions are ineffective and undemocratic.
    • According to webster.com, it is a noun meaning "an intelligentsia that develops new or experimental concepts especially in the arts".
    • I'll do that tomorrow.
    • Done
    • I've changed it to "A newspaper, Solidarität (Solidarity), was founded, but the name was changed to Einigkeit (Unity) the following year."--Carabinieri (talk) 02:14, 12 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Changed to "twenty-two to eight".--Carabinieri (talk) 02:14, 12 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support—Looks good on a fairly quick reading. Tony (talk) 09:51, 13 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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